They’ve also published an end date. You have to ticket your award by 02/28/15.

While it says that previously booked travel isn’t eligible for a refund, people have reported success calling to have it repriced and have had miles refunded without paying any fee!

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Originally posted on 02/01:

These discounted partner awards were previously only valid until 03/31/15. They were bookable in December and the first half of January before they stopped working.

Apparently must have been happy with the results as they are back and can be booked for travel all the way through 12/31/15!

Discounted awards:

1. Fly one-way between the US and Europe on a partner airline in business class for the United rate of 57.5K (normally 70K)2. Fly one-way between the US and Central Asia on a partner airline in business class for the United rate of 70K (normally 80K)3. Fly one-way between the US and North Asia on a partner airline in business class for the United rate of 70K (normally 80K)4. Fly one-way between the US and South Asia on a partner airline in business class for the United rate of 70K (normally 80K)5. Fly one-way between Europe and the Middle East on a partner airline in business class for the United rate of 35K (normally 45K)

When you join 2 segments together sometimes the married segments will have more availability in lower classes. And sometimes the opposite occurs.

For a paid flight that means that 2 individual flight segments may have availability in an inexpensive “G” class, but if you put those 2 segments together onto 1 itinerary it may only be available in a more expensive “S” fare class. Other times 2 individual flight segments may only have availability in expensive fare classes, but when you put them together both segments are available in an inexpensive fare class.

The same applies on award tickets.

A few months ago I helped my parents book their first ever major trip without the kids for their 31st anniversary. They used their miles to fly first class in Singapore suites to Paris (57K AMEX points), first class on Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong and Beijing (70K AA miles), business class on El Al to Israel (30K AA miles), and first class on BA back home (90K AA miles).

One of the issues I encountered was with married segments. While some nonstop segments didn’t show first class award availability, they were available by booking that nonstop flight when adding a leg to somewhere else. The married segments had award availability, but those same flights individually didn’t have award space. In essence it’s a hidden-city ticket, except that you can hold an award and just chop off the extra leg afterwards.

On their award I also ran into the opposite problem, when 2 individual flights had award space, but when combined into one itinerary there was nothing that could be done to book it.

And now I’m encountering this domestically. I was looking for award tickets from Cleveland to Kansas City. In the past this was a gimme, I was always able to book a 10K United nonstop short-haul award.Alas that flight no longer exists, which means we’ll have to connect in Chicago.

It did everything as I hoped it would until the final page. Then after clicking purchase I got this lovely screen:

OK, so that has to be isolated, right?

Let’s just try the next day.

Nada for CLE-MCI:

Plenty of CLE-ORD space:

And a flight from ORD-MCI:

Same story. Verified the results in expert mode, when those segments are married the award space disappears.

Tried to book via multiple destinations and got the error after clicking purchase.

So I booked the CLE-ORD flight that I wanted and a ORD-MCI flight that had a very long stopover on United.com. Then I used the invaluable United.com callback line to see what they could do about getting me on a better flight.

At first the agent claimed that there was nothing available, but she had patience and saw that both flights individually has saver award space. From there she tried putting it together but kept getting blocked.

She was ready to give up and I pushed once more and she put me on hold. When she came back she said she had gone into another system to string the flights together and it worked!

But more important than that is the incredible amount of additional saver award space it gives you access to.

While throwing together the Chicago DDF DO last week I found a flight option for AJK from NYC using 10K United miles (the 7.5K Avios flight options didn’t work for him)

Alas he had just cancelled both his and his wife’s consumer and business United cards. And the flight I found only had saver award availability for cardholders.

The United card is crucial for anyone who collects United miles. If you have elite status you can only get elite upgrades on award tickets if you have a United card. If you don’t have elite status then the expanded award availability alone makes the card an absolute must.

While the card doesn’t directly help with business class saver award availability (only Platinum, 1K, or GS status helps for that), it does make Plan B business class saver award availability easier as that award requires there to be coach saver availability.Read more about Plan B here.

So, just how much extra saver award availability is there?

Below is a look at the saver award space for 2 popular routes through March (Saver awards typically become available within a couple months of the flight). Flight results are shown from one flight on the date listed.

For example on March 22nd United is willing to sell a cardholder up to 9 coach saver award seats for 42.5K miles but there are no saver awards available for non-cardholders, so they would have to swing for the 85K standard level award. Cardholders can redeem those saver award seats for anyone, even if they don’t have a United card. Additionally United will be willing to sell a cardholder a 70K Plan B business class award but would not sell that award to a non-cardholder as there would be no saver award space to book at all.

Other card benefits:
Besides for the signup bonus of 30K miles for spending $1,000 and another 5K miles for adding a free authorized user and the expanded award space, there are other really nice benefits of the Explorer card:-Primary CDW insurance in every country in the world.
-First checked bag free.
-Priority boarding so that you’ll have space for your carry-ons.
-No foreign transaction fees.
-2 free transferable United lounge passes per year.
-10K mileage bonus every year that you spend $25K, a 40% mileage bonus which means you’ll have earned 1.4 miles per dollar everywhere.
-Spending $25K in a year also waives the requirement to spend $3K on United flights to get Silver status, $6K on United flights to get Gold status, and $9K on United flights to get Platinum status. You only need to fly the 25K, 50K, or 75K miles like in the good old days.
-Double miles on United purchases.
-Elite members can get upgrades on coach award tickets on upgrade eligible routes if they have a United card.
-Miles don’t expire as long as you are a cardholder.

-Want a 2nd free bag, a 50% mileage bonus per dollar spent everywhere, United club access for you and your entire family, post-security terminal access without a ticket, priority baggage handling and priority security access, and waived award expedite fees? The United Club card comes with all of that. Just click on the MileagePlus Club tab at the right side of the Explorer card link.

Other Chase cards you can apply for at the same time include the Chase British Airways (50K signup points, 1.25 Avios per dollar, an annual companion award ticket if you spend $30K+ in a year and the annual fee is waived for a limited time only), the Chase Freedom (which has no annual fee, gives 5 points per dollar in rotating categories, and 10% bonus points in 2015 if you have a Chase checking account), the Chase Sapphire Preferred (40K signup points plus another 5K points for adding a free additional user, no fee the first year, free primary car rental insurance including in the US and Israel, plus 2-2.14 points per dollar on travel and dining with no Foreign Exchange fees), the Chase Marriott (with 50K signup points plus a free night upon signup and a free night every subsequent year upon renewal),the Chase Ink Plus(50K signup points, 5 points per dollar on telecom/office supplies, 2 points per dollar on hotels and gas) and the Chase Ink Cash (which has no annual fee and gives 5 points per dollar on telecom/office supplies and 2 points per dollar on dining and gas).

Update: Discounted awards between the US and Japan and between Europe abd the Middle East have been added.

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Originally posted on 12/09:

Roundup of current United discounted awards (Travel valid from any city in the US48)

1. Fly round-trip to select destinations within the US in coach for 20K miles (normally 25K)2. Fly round-trip to Hawaii in coach for 36K miles (normally 45K)3. Fly round-trip to Canada in coach for 20K miles (normally 25K)4. Fly round-trip to Mexico in coach for 28K miles (normally 35K)5. Fly one-way to Europe on a partner airline in business class for the United rate of 57.5K (normally 70K)6. Fly one-way to Central Asia on a partner airline in business class for the United rate of 70K (normally 80K)7. Fly one-way between Europe and the Middle East on a partner airline in business class for the United rate of 35K (normally 45K)8. Fly round-trip between the US49/Canada and Japan in coach for 56K miles (normally 70K)

Yes, Clevelanders you read that right. JetBlue is finally making its way to C-Town.

JetBlue is joining the low-cost carrier parade that arrived in Cleveland with the United dehubbing and is launching twice daily service from Cleveland to Boston effective 04/30/15.

As an intro rate for tickets purchased today, you can fly between Cleveland and Boston on Tuesday, Wednesdays, and Satudays between 04/30-06/17 for just $19 each way!

Dave Clark, VP of JetBlue network planning said, “We consider this to be our first route in Cleveland. We’ve started with Boston. We certainly have other plans for Cleveland in mind.”

That makes it sound like Fort Lauderdale and JFK may be in the cards, though both of those have tough competition from Cleveland. United recently announced that they’re ceding the Fort Lauderdale route to Frontier and Spirit. And NYC is already served 27 times daily from Northeast Ohio.

I don’t know if this is a glitch or a promotion, but partner airline award flights are showing up on United.com for 57.5K miles each way instead of the 70K miles each way that it normally costs for a partner airline saver business award to Europe.

Of course you can always fly United business class for 115K round-trip, but it’s usually 140K round-trip to fly superior business class cabins on partner airlines, so this is a 25K mile discount per person for travel on partner airlines.

It’s only pricing that way for travel in January, February, or March and there’s no telling when it will be fixed or when the promotion will end.

As best as I can tell this is only working for flights to Europe. Though you can always use 10K BA Avios to fly from Vienna, Berlin, Munich, or Dusseldorf to Tel Aviv.

-Bookable on Priceline. Priceline tickets from the USA are refundable until 11:30pm ET the day after purchase.
And Bookable on Orbitz. Orbitz tickets from the USA are refundable until 11pm ET the day after purchase.

-Prices are valid for flight departing from the USA only.

-Delta has not yet matched, but I would expect them to shortly.

-Flights flown in January or February will earn full 11,384 flown miles on United. After February you can credit these flights to Singapore for full flown mileage credit. Flights in March and onward credited to United will only earn 5 times the base fare, which in this case is $709 round-trip x 5=3,545 miles or 1,773 miles one-way.

Note that even if Delta matches, they switch to a revenue based program on January 1st, so you would only earn 3,545 miles with them.

-Limited seats are available. Always search for 1 seat and then work your way up to the number of seats you need in order to book as many seats on sale as you can.

-NJ location: The Mall at Short Hills, located on the first floor next to Macy’s and adjacent to Guest Services. November 22 – December 24, 11:00 am until mall closing.
-SF location: The Westfield San Francisco Centre, Dome level near Bloomingdale’s. November 24 – December 24, 11:00 am until mall closing.

-The VIP Lounge is open to all Chase United Credit Card members and features complimentary gift-wrapping, coat and bag check, and snacks and beverages, including fresh baked goods, packaged snacks, soda, bottled water, and coffee, plus café-style seating and flat screen TVs.
-Football Sundays: Check out live game-day action every Sunday. All TVs in the VIP Lounge will be tuned to local and national pro football games on Sundays.
-Toys for Tots Tuesdays: Cardmembers may bring a new, unwrapped toy in its original packaging, on the following Tuesdays, December 2nd, December 9th and December 16th and you will receive one United Club pass. Bring two toys and receive two United Club passes. Minimum retail value of the toy must be $15.

-For entry, present your valid Chase United Credit Card and a valid ID.
-Each Cardmember may bring up to three guests.
-If you have recently applied for a United Card you may bring your application confirmation page to the lounge, and you will be granted access for the entire duration of the VIP Lounge.

It’s obviously not worth getting a United Explorer card for a mall lounge but there are some really nice perks of the card besides for the signup bonus (30K for spending $1,000 and 5K for adding an additional user):

-As you have better access to saver coach awards you’ll also have better ability to do Plan B awards. Plan B allows you to redeem for saver business and first class awards when there’s only saver coach available. Based on DDF reports and my own experience people have better than 95% odds of being seated in business class on a Plan B redemption. Read more about Plan B in this post. No airline besides United offers a Plan B redemption.

-The United and Chase Sapphire Preferred cards are among the only cards that come with primary rental car CDW insurance. Almost every other card only has secondary coverage when you rent a car in your home country. This means that if you damage your rental vehicle you must file the claim with your own personal insurance policy first, and only if they won’t cover the damage will the credit card cover the damage. Even additional cardholders get primary coverage when they rent.

With primary rental car CDW insurance you will not have to file anything with your own insurance company. Chase will cover the entire bill for any damage to your rental car. Just be sure to decline the rental agency’s CDW coverage. This primary coverage applies in every country in the world.

-The United Explorer card gives 2 free United Club passes every year for being a cardmember.

-The United Explorer card gives a 10K mileage bonus every year in which you spend $25K. That means you’ll earn at least 1.4 miles per dollar spent everywhere if you spend $25K in a year. Spending $25K in a year also waives the requirement to spend $2.5K on United flights to get Silver status, $5K on United flights to get Gold status, and $7.5K on United flights to get Platinum status. You only need to fly the 25K, 50K, or 75K miles like in the good old days.

-Your miles will never expire as long as you are a United cardholder even if you don’t have any activity.

-A massive benefit for United elite members is that they can get free upgrades on coach award tickets on upgrade eligible routes if they have a United card.

Plus United is the only airline that assigns elite benefits to people that you redeem awards for. That means people you book for have access to benefits like Economy Plus, lounge access, and more.

Other card benefits:
-No foreign exchange fees
-Double miles on United purchases.
-Priority boarding so that you’ll have space for your carry-ons.
-First checked bag is free.

Not the most exciting sale as it’s only valid on United and only in coach. After all you can use 38,000 ANA miles (transferable from AMEX or Starwood) for a round-trip United flight from Newark-London. But this might be useful for some.

-You can book a round-trip or an open jaw with the discounted rates.
Examples of an “open jaw” include a flight from Newark to London on 01/19 and then back from Paris to Newark on 01/26 is 48,000 miles plus $89.60 tax.
A flight from Los Angeles to London on 01/19 and then back from Zurich to Newark on 01/26 is 48,000 miles plus $60.70 tax.

You can always use 4,500 Avios for a one-way flight in Europe.

Rules:
-Fly to Amsterdam (AMS), Brussels (BRU), Frankfurt (FRA), Geneva (GVA), Hamburg (HAM), London (LHR), Munich (MUC), Paris (CDG) and Zurich (ZRH).
-Book by 12/04/14
-Travel 01/12/15-03/12/15
-Discount is valid only for travel on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It is not valid for travel on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
-Discounted Saver Award is valid only for travel between the U.S. (excluding Hawaii) or Canada, and Europe.
-Valid only on United, not on partner airlines.
-Valid for travel to/from the US48, Alaska and Canada to/from Europe.
-Valid for coach saver award only.
-Stopovers are not permitted.
-Round-trip travel is required.
-This offer cannot be applied to previously issued tickets.

LOT Polish awards haven’t been bookable on United.com for quite some time.

For more advanced award hackers that has been a blessing in disguise. It meant that fewer people knew how to book it, which meant better award availability.

But for better or worse you can once again book LOT awards on United.com and availability is excellent.

Searching random dates for 2 award seats came up with LOT award space in coach and in business. The connection times aren’t great, but you can always leave the airport and explore Warsaw. You can also get a free stopover to stay in Warsaw for as long as you wish. This itinerary can be booked for 85K United miles in coach or 160K United miles in business:

LOT flies from Chicago, JFK, and Toronto to Warsaw on the 787 Dreamliner and they have a pretty decent looking business class seat:

To help find availability you may want to search for JFK-Warsaw separately from Warsaw-Tel Aviv. Once you find dates that work you can just search for JFK-Warsaw, or you can use the multiple destination award search to book an award by specifying JFK-Warsaw and then Warsaw-Tel Aviv, or you can call to stitch together an award.

To search for just LOT Polish flights start by searching for the sample date in the picture above where you know there is availability from JFK-WAW and then click nonstop flights only. If you search for a date without nonstop availability then the calendar will show connecting availability instead of nonstop availability only.

The calendar below is only displaying nonstop award flight availability from JFK to Warsaw for 2 passengers. Scroll through the months to see what’s available. Green dates mean saver coach and business award space is available:

Same goes for WAW-TLV:

As always, if you’re willing to spend a night at a connection point it will always be easier to find award availability. Of course the award search engine won’t know you’re willing to do that, so you need to search for each segment separately before attempting to stitch them together onto one itinerary. You are allowed to stay up to 24 hours as a connection, plus stay as long as you want as a stopover in addition to the destination you’re trying to reach on an award ticket. That makes for lots of options if you’re willing to make longer connections than the computer would normally price out.

For those keeping score at home here is the remaining list of United partners that must be booked over the phone:
-Air India
-Brussels Airlines
-Cape Air
-Great Lakes Airlines
-Jet Airways
-Shenzhen
-Singapore

United downgraded Cleveland from a small hub to a large focus city in June. They went from about 60 destinations to 19. A big downgrade, but Cleveland is still by far their largest non-hub operation. They kept service to all 7 other hubs (Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Newark, San Francisco, and Washington/IAD.) as well as 12 other cities (Boston, Cancun, Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, NYC/LGA, Orlando, S. Louis, Tampa, and Washington/DCA)

I said back in February right after the announcement,

“If Cleveland is lucky perhaps we’ll get Porter flights to Toronto or JetBlue service to Boston and JFK. And if we’re unlucky perhaps we’ll get Spirit “

Spirit announced today that they will make Cleveland a focus city.

It will be phased in next year with daily nonstop service from Cleveland to Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Orlando. There will also be 3x weekly service to Tampa in the winter, 4x weekly service to Fort Myers in the winter, and daily service to Myrtle Beach in the summer.

Cleveland has become a major focus city for the nation’s ultra-low-cost carriers.

Other flight additions after the dehubbing include USAirways service to Phoenix, Southwest service to Las Vegas and Phoenix, Delta service to Hartford, Indianpolis, Raleigh/Durham, as well as expanded Delta service to Atlanta, JFK, and LGA. Southwest has also added service to Washington/DCA and beefed up LGA service from nearby Akron/Canton airport.

I don’t see how United can sustain their focus city operations at Cleveland in light of this massive influx of low-cost carrier flights. Nor do I think the onslaught is over. I still think JetBlue and perhaps others will join the party.

I definitely expect to hear about further cuts to United’s flight operations at Cleveland. Within a couple years Cleveland will probably just be a large spoke city with service to United’s hubs and very little else.

Update:A commenter says he was told by an agent that they will no longer do this process.

Luckily I can confirm that isn’t true as can several DDF’ers. I recently helped a couple of family members setup a Plan B award to Israel. They were able to get saver awards on United thanks to having expanded saver class award availability as they had a Chase United Explorer card.

We held the 85K coach saver award online and used the callback line to setup the 140K business saver award with all segments waitlisted for business class.

Their return trip from Tel Aviv cleared into BusinessFirst automatically.

They were nervous about their outbound trip to Tel Aviv as the domestic portion of the flight cleared into first class in advance while the Newark-Tel Aviv segment was still in coach. United.com was showing that BusinessFirst was completely full with several passengers standing by. Luckily United.com is explicit that if the domestic first class portion clears but the BusinessFirst portion doesn’t clear you can still get a full refund after the flight.

They had the agent waitlist them for BusinessFirst at their departing airport but I noticed that the United.com flight status page showed them at the bottom of the BusinessFirst waitlist. So in Newark I told them to go to find another agent and explain clearly that they paid for BusinessFirst and were displaced business class passengers and therefore they deserved top priority “PR-1″ status. They referenced the GG code listed below as well.

They found a competent agent, 3 people in business no-showed for the flight, and they both got their lie-flat business class seats to Israel!

Truly the hidden gem of United miles.
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Note that as the article below was written prior to the 02/01 devaluation, the rates and examples listed were with pre-devaluation numbers that I haven’t updated.

Business class award tickets are typically a sweet spot in award redemption charts. While you can fly to Israel for $1,000 in coach you would have to shell out 5 times that to fly in business. Whereas with miles the difference is much smaller, United currently charges 40K miles for a one-way coach ticket or 60K miles for a one-way business ticket. (Note that for awards booked after 01/31 those rates will go up to 42.5K in coach and 70K in United business.)

Of course that creates a lot of competition for business class award seats which is why they’re harder to find than coach award seats. Nonstop business class awards to Tel Aviv are among the most challenging award tickets out there. Not that it’s impossible, I recently booked a friend who is in the air right now on a USAirways business saver award to Tel Aviv and is returning in 2 weeks on a United business saver award. But it means constantly checking to see if award seats have opened up and possibly waiting until the last minute to book.

And that’s where Plan B comes in handy. It works as long as there is United saver coach award availability. I find that I have the best luck booking a Plan B using this web support callback link. Ex-Continental agents staff that line and some are still familiar with this procedure that survived the merger.

Unfortunately Plan B is just the internet name for this type of ticket, there’s no easy way to describe what you want to an agent. You need to tell the agent that you found United coach saver award availability but would like to purchase and be issued a business class saver award, be seated in coach, and waitlisted for a business class seat. I often tell the agent that I have done this in the past over the phone and was wondering if they know how to set it up.

At this point most agents will think you’re nuts and say that no such thing exists.

Indeed in preparation for this post I had the web support desk call me and the first agent just laughed at my suggestion. She told me to book the ticket online and call in to waitlist for a business class seat. However that is NOT what I wanted as that would not have the benefits of a Plan B booking, as I’ll soon explain.

Then I called the 1K Premier line and the agent was more courteous but couldn’t help me. Afterward I used the web support callback link again (I always take note of an agent’s name when I play HUCA (Hang up, Call again) so that I don’t bother the same incompetent agent again) and got Gary H, who turned out to be fantastic.

At first Gary said he recalled such a thing being possible in the Continental days but he hadn’t heard of it being done in years and he wouldn’t even know how to go about doing it.

Then he asked me to hang on while he was looking up documentation. He found the exact procedure and proceeded to book my Plan B award!

He correctly debited my account the 60,000 miles needed for a one-way business class seat to Tel Aviv while he seated me in coach. He said that I would need to call back in after the itinerary had ticketed (United itineraries can take anywhere from a minute to an hour to be ticketed with an eticket number) in order to waitlist for the business class seat. However just 2 minutes later I actually got a call back from Gary letting me know that my reservation had ticketed and that he had waitlisted me for a business class seat! Now that’s great customer service!

I asked him if there was anything I could tell an agent in the future so that they don’t think I have mushrooms growing out of my head. He said they have a documentation system called CORE. In there an agent can lookup the procedure for award waitlist guidelines and it will tell them how to manually issue a business class saver award when there is only coach saver available. If you have to refer an agent to look there I’d tell them that a previous agent who booked such a ticket for you told you to reference that system in case you have any problems in the future.

If you have correctly setup your ticket it will look something like this online:

Notice how I was charged the full 60,000 miles, the business class rate. However my fare class is Economy. The letter code for a coach saver award is either X or XN. X refers to saver coach award space for general members. XN is expanded saver coach award space for logged-in elites and people who have the Chase United Explorer credit card. (That’s an incredibly valuable benefit of having the card, especially for a Plan B award as you’ll have expanded coach, business, and first class saver award space as well. The card also gets you free baggage, priority boarding, and it might just be the only credit card in the world that gives free primary car rental insurance in every country in the world-even in your home country and Israel. Almost every other card only gives weak secondary coverage in your home country).

Then notice how IN class is requested. I class refers to saver business class award space. IN is expanded saver business class award space for Platinums/1Ks/Global Services.

If you have I or IN class requested AND you were debited the miles for a business class saver award then you’ve properly setup a Plan B award!

If business saver award space opens then you may be automatically moved into business or there may be a message to call in to clear you from the waitlist. It’s important to keep checking as it may or may not automatically clear you and when you see that it says the space is available you should call in right away.

But what happens if that space never opens up? The system will stop checking at 24 hours before your flight for that space you need.

Because you paid for a business class seat you are considered a displaced business class passenger. Thus you should be prioritized ahead of all upgraders trying to nab business seats on the day of departure.

Unfortunately the system is not setup to automatically give you that priority, only an airport agent can do that. So show up at the airport as early as possible for your flight (or if possible you can go to the airport 24 hours before your flight) and explain to the agent that you are not upgrading with miles but you paid for a business class ticket and are only seated in coach. This is true as you have paid the full business class rate already. If the agent doesn’t understand this you should ask for a supervisor, it’s crucial they understand that you’re not a coach passenger trying to upgrade with miles but a displaced business class passenger.

The agent should give you “PR-1 status” which gives you top-priority status and moves you to the very top of the upgrade standby list, ahead of employees and everyone else trying to upgrade with miles+cash. If one agent won’t put you on the list as a displaced Business class passenger with PR-1 status then find another one who will. With this status the odds of you getting a business class are very high if there are still open seats (or if anybody no-shows).

If the agents in the airport are all clueless you should direct them to look up “gg onestandby” in their system (they’ll know exactly what this is) and look around lines 81 which spell out the details of the procedure for this award. (Parenthetically, when trying to get a gate pass to access a club as a United Club cardholder when I’m not flying I sometimes need to tell an agent to look up “gg checkpoint line 53″ which instructs agents to give you a security pass for you and your guests to access post-security United and USAirways clubs even if you aren’t flying.)

If they don’t believe that you really paid the business class award rate then have them call up the reward desk. Like I said, it’s good to leave plenty of time at the airport for Plan B tickets.

I can’t stress enough how imperative it is to have this setup correctly: If you don’t get an airport agent to properly give you top-priority status then there is very little chance that you will be flying in business class.

With the United app or on United.com you can search for the upgrade standby list for any flight by searching under flight status. You will see how many business class seats are still open and you should see your name at the very top of that list. If you’re on a Plan B ticket and are at the bottom of the business class upgrade list then the agent didn’t give you the right priority status as a displaced business class passenger.

Everyone I know who has properly setup and followed through on a Plan B ticket had flown in business class. But what if you don’t clear? Just contact United after the flight (Again, I’d use the web support callback link) and they will refund the extra miles you paid for business class. For EWR-TLV this means a refund of the extra 20,000 miles each way they charge to fly in business saver over coach saver.

Of course this also works on connecting flights. If you are on a connecting flight you should be sure to be waitlisted for First Class on all of your flights. Say you are coming from Los Angeles, even if you clear into first class on the LAX-EWR flight, as long as you don’t clear on the international EWR-TLV flight you will still get the 20,000 miles each way refund!

All of this only works with United flights, it won’t work for partner flights (partner flights can be on the same itinerary, you just can’t use Plan B for them).

This Plan B process would also work for routes with global first class that has only coach or business saver awards available (Tel Aviv does not have Global First class).

Happy flying! And when you’re flying in a lie-flat business class seat you’re guaranteed to be a whole lot happier, especially when you’re just using the miles you got from opening a single credit card

This has long been a targeted offer but is now available publicly. The $95 annual fee is waived for the first year.

You’ll earn 50,000 bonus miles for spending $2,000 within 3 months and an additional 5,000 miles for adding a free additional user card and making a purchase within 3 months.

Spend $2,000 on a new card and add an additional user and you’ll have 57,000 miles.

A short-haul United domestic award under 700 miles in distance is just 10,000 miles. That’s a lot more than the BA 4.5K short-haul, but it allow for a longer distance and you are allowed to have connections for the same rate, something that BA doesn’t allow.

A round-trip ticket to 2 European or South American cities is just 60,000 miles round-trip thanks to a free stopover. You’re even allowed a free open jaw on the same itinerary as a free stopover to really maximize your travel.

Best of all United never charges any fuel surcharges. Other airlines like American and USAirways collect massive fuel surcharges to fly on British Airways. Delta charges fuel surcharges to fly on some partners and if you originate in Europe and other regions. United will never collect a fuel surcharge and they have access to awards on 36 partner airlines which means better availability on more awards.

-As you have better access to saver coach awards you’ll also have better ability to do Plan B awards. Plan B allows you to redeem for saver business and first class awards when there’s only saver coach available. Based on DDF reports and my own experience people have better than 95% odds of being seated in business class on a Plan B redemption.-Read more about Plan B in this post.

No airline besides United offers a Plan B redemption.

-The United and Chase Sapphire Preferred cards are among the only cards that come with primary rental car CDW insurance. Almost every other card only has secondary coverage when you rent a car in your home country. This means that if you damage your rental vehicle you must file the claim with your own personal insurance policy first, and only if they won’t cover the damage will the credit card cover the damage. Even additional cardholders get primary coverage when they rent.

With primary rental car CDW insurance you will not have to file anything with your own insurance company. Chase will cover the entire bill for any damage to your rental car. Just be sure to decline the rental agency’s CDW coverage. This primary coverage applies in every country in the world.

No airline card besides United offers primary CDW insurance.

-The United Explorer card gives 2 free United Club passes every year for being a cardmember.

-The United Explorer card gives a 10K mileage bonus every year in which you spend $25K. That means you’ll earn at least 1.4 miles per dollar spent everywhere if you spend $25K in a year. Spending $25K in a year also waives the requirement to spend $2.5K on United flights to get Silver status, $5K on United flights to get Gold status, and $7.5K on United flights to get Platinum status. You only need to fly the 25K, 50K, or 75K miles like in the good old days.

-Your miles will never expire as long as you are a United cardholder even if you don’t have any activity.

-A massive benefit for United elite members is that they can get free upgrades on coach award tickets on upgrade eligible routes if they have a United card.

Plus United is the only airline that assigns elite benefits to people that you redeem awards for. That means people you book for have access to benefits like Economy Plus, lounge access, and more.

Last Friday morning I flew with my family from Los Angeles to Cleveland on 12.5K saver award tickets and all 4 of us were upgraded thanks to my elite status and having a United card!

Other card benefits:
-No foreign exchange fees
-Double miles on United purchases.
-Priority boarding so that you’ll have space for your carry-ons.
-First checked bag is free.

United has 36 partner airlines which means lots of award opportunities. However not all of them are currently bookable online, you’ll have to call (or use the Aeroplan or ANA sites) to get the full picture:

Other Chase consumer cards you can simultaneously include the Chase British Airways (50K signup points, 1.25 Avios per dollar, and an annual companion award ticket if you spend $30K+ in a year), the Chase Sapphire Preferred (40K signup points plus another 5K points for adding a free additional user, no fee the first year, plus 2.14 points per dollar on travel and dining with no Foreign Exchange fees), and the Chase Freedom(which has no annual fee, gives5 points per dollar in rotating categories, and through 12/31/15, 10% bonus points if you have a Chase checking account increasing earnings up to 5.5 points per dollar).

United has a great first class fare from LaGuardia to Seattle. You need to book 3 weeks in advance and seats aren’t available on all dates. You can stay in Seattle for a while or catch a flight right back, as shown below:

Mileage Running:

Why would you want to catch a flight right back?

It’s called a mileage run, though that’s a dying art as the airlines have made getting elite status on the cheap progressively harder.

I’ve had my fun with mileage runs. In 2003 I took AAdvantage of American’s AVNYC promotion to fly twice between NYC and Florida or California on $69 tickets for a free systemwide ticket. I used the systemwide ticket to fly from Sao Paulo-Dallas-JFK-Tokyo-Los Angeles-Miami-Sao Paulo.

United now requires US residents to fly 50,000 miles and spend at least $5,000 on United flights (if you spend $25,000 annually on the United Explorer card then you don’t have to spend $5,000 on flights) to earn Star Alliance Gold status for just 1 year.

And United blocks their own elites from using United Clubs when flying domestically.

Aegean only requires 19,000 elite qualifying miles to get Star Alliance Gold status.

Technically you have 1 year from when you signup to the program to get at least 3,000 more flight miles to reach Silver status at 4,000 total miles. You then have 1 year from when you earn Blue/Silver status to get up to 20,000 total miles and earn Gold status.

Once you have the Gold status it’s yours to keep. You just need to credit a single Star Alliance flight to your Aegean account once every every 36 months to extend your Star Alliance Gold status for another 36 months.

The terms of the program can change, but lots of folks have had Aegean Gold since 2010 and continue to enjoy the benefits by just crediting 1 United flight to the account every 36 months.

Most United coach tickets only earn half the flown miles. However United First Class tickets in F or A class earn triple the miles flown.

In the LGA-SEA flight example above you’ll notice that I selected flights that connect in Houston. By connecting there the total flight miles are 3,290 each way or 6,580 round-trip. When you credit that flight to your Aegean account (just enter your Aegean number on United.com or give it to an airport agent) you’ll earn triple miles because the ticket is a first class ticket in A class, so you’ll have 19,740 miles. Add that to the 1,000 miles you get at signup and you’ll have Star Alliance Gold status after the single round-trip flight!

Plus you’ll have 20,740 miles that you can use for Star Alliance award flights.

Star Alliance Gold Benefits:

-You and a companion can access over 1,000 Star Alliance lounges when departing from the airport on any Star Alliance airline. When you have Star Alliance Gold status from United you can’t access any of their lounges when traveling domestically, but when you have Star Alliance Gold status from a foreign carrier like Aegean you can access United lounges when flying domestically.

And yes, with Star Alliance Gold status you’ll have access to the Dan lounge in Tel Aviv even if you’re flying United coach.

-You get at least 1 additional free bag over the baggage allowance for non-elites. On Air Canada and United that even extends to each of your travel companions. On United in coach a 2nd bag to Israel for example would be free, a value of $200 round-trip per person. On United in business or first class you and your companions will get 3 free 70 pound bags. On Air Canada in any class you and your companions will get 3 free bags, a value of $650 round-trip per person.

-When flying on United having Star Alliance Gold status will allow you to make the free same-day confirmed changes to your flight when done in the online check-in process.

Caveats:
-Aegean miles aren’t worth as much as United miles, so once you get the status you want you will want to switch back to earning miles from United. You can check your bags with your Aegean Gold card and then switch your number to accumulate United miles for the flight.
-You won’t get upgrades on United like you would if you earned elite status in their program.
-You won’t get bonus miles on United like you would if you earned elite status in their programs.
-You won’t get Economy Plus seating like you would if you you earned elite status in their own program, though some gate agents and an occasional phone agent may move you there for free.
-You won’t get expanded elite award availability on United like you would if you earned elite status in their own program, however anyone who has a United Explorer card gets expanded coach saver award seats and last seat coach, business, and first class standard awards. And United requires at least Platinum status (75K miles/year) to get expanded business/first class saver awards. Besides once there is coach saver award space you can always do a Plan B award to sit in the front of the bus.

United’s CEO Jeff Smisek has once again shown that he’s not one to ever miss an opportunity to match an unfriendly move made by Delta (though he never copies the good). He seems to think he can deliver all of the cuts that Delta does without improving the actual product as Delta has done. And this is all a copy-paste of what Delta already announced for 2015.

I doubt it will be too long before AA mAAtches, but boy they will get a lot of new frequent flyers if they don’t.

-Base members will earn 5 miles per dollar, Silvers will earn 7, Golds will earn 8, Platinums will earn 9, and 1K and GS members will earn 11. Just like with Delta, there is a limit of 75K miles that you can earn per ticket, so if you are flying on an ultra-expensive ticket be sure to book it as 2 one-ways.

-Miles are earned on base airfare and fuel surcharges. They are not earned on taxes.

-Revenue based earning will apply for all United flights when credited to the United program.

-Revenue based earning will apply for all partner flights when the ticket is issued by United and the flight are credited to the United program.

-Mileage based earning will apply to partner flights when the ticket is issued by partner airlines and when the flight is credited to the United program.

-I’d presume that United flights credited to partner airlines will still earn miles based on the distance flown.

-Currently a non-elite flying round-trip between JFK and Los Angeles on a $300+tax ticket earns 4,950 miles. Come 2015 and that flight will earn a paltry 1,500 miles. A silver elite currently earns 6,188 miles but come 2015 and they will earn 2,100 miles. A gold elite currently earns 7,425 miles but come 2015 and they will earn 2,400 miles. A platinum elite currently earns 8,663 miles but come 2015 and they will earn 2,700 miles. A 1K elite currently earns 9,900 miles but come 2015 and they will earn 3,300 miles.

-Elite status will continue to be earned based on mileage actually flown.

-In early 2015, you will have the ability to use miles for new options such as Economy Plus one-time purchases, Economy Plus subscriptions and checked baggage subscriptions.

-Miles earned from credit card spending will remain unchanged. If anything they become more valuable as there will be fewer miles in the system earned from actual flights.

United partnered with Brazilian carrier Azul as they lost TAM to Oneworld. Azul’s CEO and founder is David Neeleman who also founded JetBlue and WestJet and brought that model (and his favorite color?) to Brazil.

Until now award flights had to be booked over the phone but they are now bookable on United.com and availability is incredible. I took a gander at nonstop flights from Sao Paulo to Iguassu Falls, Manaus, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador and availability was perfect at the 12.5K domestic award level.

Later this year Azul will announce new routes between the US and Brazil, hopefully availability will be just as good!

For those keeping score at home here is the remaining list of United partners that must be booked over the phone:
-Brussels Airlines (Can sometimes be booked online)
-Cape Air
-Great Lakes Airlines
-Jet Airways
-LOT Polish (An excellent option with great availability in coach and business for flights to Israel)
-Shenzhen
-Singapore

In other news, USAirways and American will start reciprocal upgrades on June 11th. That means free upgrades for all American elites flying on USAirways, free upgrades for USAirways Chairman’s members flying on American, and upgrades for purchase for lower tier USAirways elites flying on American.

-Find more articles like this by clicking on the “Mileage Posts”tab on top of the DansDeals banner at the top of this site.
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United.com’s Expert Mode can tell you a lot about a flight. Here’s how to use it.

Step 1: Enable it by clicking this link, logging into your United account, checking to enable expert mode, and then saving your preferences. You’ll only have to do this once though you will always have to be logged into your United account to access Expert mode results.

Step 2: Search for a paid flight and then click on “Fare Class” which should be highlighted in blue once you enable expert mode. In this example I searched yesterday for a flight from Newark to Tel Aviv on 08/04/14:

Let’s zoom in a bit on those expert mode results:

Here’s what that alphabet soup means for United flight 84:J9: Paid bucket. There are at least 9 business seats that United is willing to sell at full fare.JN9: Award bucket. There are at least 9 business seats that United is willing to allow elite members and United cardholders to use standard miles for.C9, D9, Z9: Paid buckets. There are at least 9 business seats that United is willing to sell at these fare levels.ZN9: Award bucket. There are at least 9 business seats that United is willing to allow non-elites to use standard miles for.P0: Paid bucket. United is not willing to sell any business class seats at this discounted level.PN0: Award bucket.On domestic flights this is the number of seats that United is willing to give to 1K/GS elites as an instant upgrade from an M class fare or to any elites an an instant upgrade from a paid Y or B class ticket. This bucket is also the upgrade bucket for GS elites for all domestic and international upgrades, in this case there are no upgrades available for GS elites either.R0: Award bucket.United is not willing to allow non-elites to have instant upgrades using miles from coach to BusinessFirst. (Also used for complimentary elite upgrades on domestic routes.)RN0: Award bucket.United is not willing to allow elite members to have instant upgrades using miles or upgrade certificates from coach to BusinessFirst. (Also used for complimentary elite upgrades on domestic routes.)IN0: Award bucket.United is not willing to allow Plat/1K/GS elites to redeem Saver level miles for a BusinessFirst seat.I0: Award bucket. United is not willing to allow non-elites/lower tier elites to redeem Saver level miles for a BusinessFirst seat. This is also the only business award bucket that partner airline miles can access.Y9: Paid bucket. There are at least 9 coach seats that United is willing to sell at full fare.YN9: Award bucket. There are at least 9 coach seats that United is willing to allow elite members and United cardholders to use standard miles for.B9, M9, E9, U9, H9: Paid buckets. There are at least 9 coach seats that United is willing to sell at these non-discounted fare levels.HN9: Award bucket.There are at least 9 coach seats that United is willing to allow non-elites to use standard miles for.Q9, V9, W9, S9, T9, L9, K9: Paid buckets. There are at least 9 coach seats that United is willing to sell at these discounted fare levels.G0, N0: Paid buckets. United is not willing to sell any coach seats at these discounted levels.XN9: Award bucket.There are at least 9 coach seats that United is willing to allow elite members and United cardholders to use saver miles for.X1: Award bucket. There is 1 coach seat that United is willing to allow non-elites or non-cardholders to use saver miles for. This is also the only coach award bucket that partner airline miles can access.

You’ll notice a few differences for the next flight, United flight 90.
1. United isn’t willing to sell any D or Z paid BusinessFirst seats, this flight will be more expensive to book in business class as the minimum fare class is C. (D0, Z0)
2. United isn’t willing to allow non-elites to use standard miles for BusinessFirst seats on this flight (ZN0)
3. United has 4 seats on this flight for elite members and United cardholders to use saver miles for (XN4)
4. United has no seats on this flight for non-elites or non-cardholders to use saver miles for. And that means no partner awards as well for this flight (X0)

Notes:

1. Fare classes can’t be added together.
Just because there is 1 seat in X class doesn’t mean there are 10 seats in XN class. If the X seat is booked the XN class may go down to 8 or it may stay at 9.
2. On a United flight with 3 classes of service there are more letters to know about.
F is full fare paid first class. FN is a first class standard award. A is discounted paid first class. ON is upgrade space into first class. O is a saver first class award.

3. Forget “Remember Me”
If you click “Remember Me” then it will looked like you’re logged in, but after a short period of time you will no longer have access to expert mode results. I never use remember me as it also messes up my award searches by excluding the elite buckets from the calendar.

5. Expert mode can only be accessed when searching for paid flights. However you can verify the results by searching for an award flight.

I searched for awards and clicked on “Nonstop flights only.” Note that nonstop button will only work if United.com can find nonstop awards for that day. If it doesn’t find any for that day you need to find a day with awards and then resubmit the nonstop search with that date.

Here’s what it looks like from a cardholder’s account. As you can see, there are saver awards available on both flights.

Here’s what it looks like from a non-cardholder’s account. As you can see, there is a saver award available on only the earlier flight, UA84:

Of course those screens don’t give the complete picture as they don’t say how many awards are available. As you now know from expert mode the XN (elite or cardholder) bucket has 9 seats on UA84 and 4 seats on UA90.

The X bucket has just 1 seat on UA84 and no seats on UA90.

6. A quick way to verify if United.com recognizes you as a cardholder:

If your card is properly linked you will see the following message that your miles won’t expire as long as you remain a cardholder:

If your card isn’t properly linked then you will see the following message that your miles will expire if you don’t have activity every 18 months:

7. Award space and fare buckets are extremely fluid.

Those buckets chang multiple times per day based on people booking up awards and United releasing more awards as the flight gets closer when they feel they won’t sell the seats to someone else. Newark to Tel Aviv is one of the toughest awards in United’s entire network, but by diligently checking award space and by having a United card you can vastly improve your odds of nabbing seats.

8. The Chase United Explorer card and the United Club card are the only currently available credit cards that gives you access to expanded award ticket availability. If you have the discontinued Presidential Plus card that will work as well.

The extra availability is significant, I’ve booked saver awards to Fort Lauderdale and Los Angeles this year where there was lots of space for cardholders while there was none for non-cardholders.

The cards have other great benefits besides expanded award space:
-Your miles won’t expire as long as you remain a cardholder.
-It is one of the only cards that comes with primary rental car CDW insurance. Almost every other card only has secondary coverage when you rent a car in your home country. This means that if you damage your rental vehicle you must file the claim with your own personal insurance policy first, and only if they won’t cover the damage will the credit card cover the damage. Even additional cardholders get primary coverage when they rent.

With primary rental car CDW insurance you will not have to file anything with your own insurance company. Chase will cover the entire bill for any damage to your rental car. Just be sure to decline the rental agency’s CDW coverage. This primary coverage applies in every country in the world.
The Sapphire Preferred is what I use in Israel and other foreign countries, but that’s just because of the 2.14 points per dollar it awards on car rentals. In the US, the United card is the way to go.
-First checked bag free.
-Priority boarding so that you’ll have space for your carry-ons.
-No foreign transaction fees.
-2 free United passes per year.
-10K mileage bonus every year that you spend $25K, a 40% mileage bonus which means you’ll have earned 1.4 miles per dollar everywhere. Spending $25K in a year also waives the requirement to spend $2.5K on United flights to get Silver status, $5K on United flights to get Gold status, and $7.5K on United flights to get Platinum status. You only need to fly the 25K, 50K, or 75K miles like in the good old days.
-Double miles on United purchases.
-Elite members can get upgrades on coach award tickets on upgrade eligible routes if they have a United card.

The $95 annual fee is waived for the first year.

-You can also get the business version of the Chase United Explorer card. Just click on “Are you a business owner” in the top-right of the Explorer card link.

-Want a 2nd free bag, a 50% mileage bonus per dollar spent everywhere, United club access for you and your entire family, post-security terminal access without a ticket, priority baggage handling and priority security access, and waived award expedite fees? The United Club card comes with all of that. Just click on the MileagePlus Club tab on the right side of the Explorer card application page.

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Other Chase consumer cards you can apply for at the time as the United card using multiple browsers include the Chase Sapphire Preferred (40K signup points plus another 5K points for adding a free additional user, no fee the first year, plus 2.14 points per dollar on travel and dining with no Foreign Exchange fees), Chase British Airways (50K signup points and 10% off BA flights), Chase Southwest(50K signup points), and Chase Freedom (which gives 5 points per dollar in rotating categories and 10% bonus points if you have a Chase checking account).

The Chase Ink Plusand Chase Ink Bold business cards both give 60,000 signup points if you apply this month and offer 5 points per dollar on telecom, cable, and office supply stores, 2 points per dollar for gas and lodging, no foreign exchange fees, free lounge visits, and a waived annual fee for the first year.
The Chase Ink Cash business card gives 30,000 signup points if you apply this month and has no annual fee.

Update, 02/27: It’s worth making an update to this post to note that if you use United.com’s “Remember Me” button it can cause your award searches to exclude your expanded availability.

You must be logged into your mileage account to have access to expanded award availability. If you check the “remember me” option it will look just like you are logged in, but after a short period of time it will stop searching for expanded awards.

I was searching for an award flight to Tel Aviv on 01/25/14 while logged into my account with “Remember Me” and got this goose egg:

However after logging out and back in again that same search came up with award seats:

Using expert mode (as described in the original post below) you can see exactly what’s going on:

There are no award seats available for non cardholders (X class) but there are at least 9 award seats available for cardholders (XN class).

Same thing happened when I searched yesterday for an award from Cleveland to Fort Lauderdale for Pesach and expert mode shows why, 3 seats available just for cardholders or elites who are logged in without remember me:

Moral of the story is simple, don’t have United.com remember you if you have elite status or a United credit card.

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Originally posted on 01/15/14:

The Chase United Explorer card and the United Club card are the only currently available credit cards that gives you access to expanded award ticket availability.

It also is one of the only cards that comes with primary rental car CDW insurance. Almost every other card only has secondary coverage when you rent a car in your home country. This means that if you damage your rental vehicle you must file the claim with your own personal insurance policy first, and only if they won’t cover the damage will the credit card cover the damage. Even additional cardholders get primary coverage when they rent.

With primary rental car CDW insurance you will not have to file anything with your own insurance company. Chase will cover the entire bill for any damage to your rental car. Just be sure to decline the rental agency’s CDW coverage. This primary coverage applies in every country in the world. The Sapphire Preferred is what I use in Israel and other foreign countries, but that’s just because of the 2.14 points per dollar it awards on car rentals. In the US the United card is the way to go.

How do you find expanded award availability? All you need to do is login to your United.com account before you search for award flights.

How do you know if your card is properly linked to your account? Just login on United.com and then hover over the words “Mileage Expiration”

If your card is properly linked you will see the following message that your miles won’t expire as long as you remain a cardholder:

If your card isn’t properly linked then you will see the following message that your miles will expire if you don’t have activity every 18 months:

Expanded saver coach example:

When logged into an account with a United Explorer card there is 40K saver award space from Newark to Tel Aviv on November 23, 25, and 30:

When not logged in or when logged into an account without a credit card or elite status there is no space on any of those dates.

After enabling expert mode you can search for a paid flight from Newark to Tel Aviv on 11/23 and then click on “fare class” which will bring up the available cabins box:

Everything in that alphabet soup stands for important stuff but all we care about right now is XN and X class availability. There are at least 9 XN seats, meaning there are at least 9 saver award seats available to someone who has a United Explorer card or who has United elite status. It never shows more than 9, so 9 means 9 or more.

There are 0 X seats, meaning that if you don’t have a United credit card and want a seat on that flight you would have to book a standard award for 75K miles. Those 75K coach standard seats actually come out of the HN bucket for non-cardholders, so there are at least 9 of those.

Expanded standard coach and business example:

When logged into an account with a United Explorer card there is 75K coach standard award space and 150K business standard award space from Newark to Tel Aviv on the red-eye flight on 04/12. This is an extremely popular flight for people flying to Israel for Pesach.

When not logged in or when logged into an account without a credit card or elite status there isn’t even standard award space available for that flight. The flight doesn’t even show up when performing an award search from such an account.

How many seats are available for cardholders and elites?

HN class is standard coach availability for non-cardholders, no seats there. ZN is standard business availability for non-cardholders, no seats there either.

YN is standard coach availability for cardholders and elites, at least 9 seats there. JN is standard business availability for cardholders and elites, at least 9 seats there. In fact as long as there is a seat on the plane you can use the standard mileage award for get it if you are a cardholder.

Expanded saver business example:

Only United Platinum, 1K, and Global Services elites have access to expanded business class award availability (IN class as shown in expert mode).

As United cardholders have more coach saver award space available they will automatically have more business saver award space as well thanks to Plan B.

Other card benefits:
Besides for the signup bonus of 30K miles for spending $1,000 and another 5K miles for adding a free authorized user, the primary CDW insurance, and the expanded award space, there are other nice benefits of the Explorer card:
-First checked bag free.
-Priority boarding so that you’ll have space for your carry-ons.
-No foreign transaction fees.
-2 free United passes per year.
-10K mileage bonus every year that you spend $25K, a 40% mileage bonus which means you’ll have earned 1.4 miles per dollar everywhere. Spending $25K in a year also waives the requirement to spend $2.5K on United flights to get Silver status, $5K on United flights to get Gold status, and $7.5K on United flights to get Platinum status. You only need to fly the 25K, 50K, or 75K miles like in the good old days.
-Double miles on United purchases.
-Elite members can get upgrades on coach award tickets on upgrade eligible routes if they have a United card.
-Miles don’t expire as long as you are a cardholder.

The $95 annual fee is waived for the first year.

-You can also get the business version of the Chase United Explorer card. Just click on “Are you a business owner” in the top-right of the Explorer card link.

-Want a 2nd free bag, a 50% mileage bonus per dollar spent everywhere, United club access for you and your entire family, post-security terminal access without a ticket, priority baggage handling and priority security access, and waived award expedite fees? The United Club card comes with all of that. Just click on the MileagePlus Club tab at the top of the Explorer card link.

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Other Chase consumer cards you can get at the time as the United card include the Chase Sapphire Preferred (40K signup points plus another 5K points for adding a free additional user, no fee the first year, plus 2.14 points per dollar on travel and dining with no Foreign Exchange fees), Chase Southwest(50K signup points), Chase British Airways (50K signup points and 10% off BA flights), and Chase Freedom (which gives 5 points per dollar in rotating categories and 10% bonus points if you have a Chase checking account).

The Chase Ink Plusand Chase Ink Bold business cards both give 50,000 signup points and offer 5 points per dollar on telecom, cable, and office supply stores, 2 points per dollar for gas and lodging, no foreign exchange fees, free lounge visits, and a waived annual fee for the first year.

By doing that you would be able to fly Lufthansa First Class at the old rates (135K to Europe/150K to Tel Aviv) instead of the new rates (220K to Europe/280K to Tel Aviv) by just changing the dates close to when you want to fly. You would pay a small change fee, but save a boatload of miles. Lufthansa typically only releases their first class award space within 14 days of a flight. Their first class is great with planes like the 747-400 that give you a seat as well as a real mattress next to it. Plus you get access to their first class terminal where you can indulge in kosher food and rare scotches before being driven in a luxury car right up to your plane as I wrote about in my Venice trip notes a few years ago.

The advice wasn’t without controversy.

United refused to confirm or deny and their Flyertalk liaison advised that I should take a more conservative approach (ha!).

Numerous Flyertalkers ridiculed the advice, though I’d wager that most of them had probably never even used that cancel without redeposit option.

One blogger reblogged my advice to which another blogger responded, “I would bet that the odds of this working as described are near nil….Repeating bad advice doesn’t make it true.”

And yet another blogger wrote “Dan is suggesting that before the travel date you cancel the trip…He seems convinced this will work for locking in the old rates. I don’t necessarily disagree, I’m just not as confident about United’s system working that way as he is.”

I made several reservations myself and finally got around to playing with them and what I found was fascinating. Not only can simple date changes be made without paying more miles (the intention of the original trick) but just about every other change can be done as well under the old award chart.

For example I have a one-way itinerary from Frankfurt to Cleveland via Newark on a Lufthansa 747-400 that was cancelled without being redeposited. It currently looks like this:

And as predicted by choosing change flights I can change it without paying any additional miles. In fact I could even change directions to have it go from Newark to Frankfurt without additional miles:

But I didn’t stop there. I tried changing my one-way into a round-trip and it only asked for an extra 67,500 miles per person for the return trip. In other words by just having one of these itineraries I am able to book awards under the old rates (67.5K each way) instead of the new rates (110K each way).

Compare that with the vile new award chart rates for a first class partner award for 2 passengers:

But why stop there? Next I tried changing the one-way Lufthansa ticket into a round-trip business class ticket to Israel. Those tickets used to cost 120K round-trip but are now 140K on United or 160K on partner airlines.

Once again, it priced it out as a ticket under the old award chart, asking for 120K per passenger:

Want to fly in your own private Asiana suite? That’s 240K per person now, but with an old ticket you can access the old rate of 140K per person:

Seemingly with any old award you can make a change online and access the old award chart. Pretty cool if you ask me!

Best of all as I booked several one-ways each of those can be transformed into round-trips to anywhere in the world at the old rates.

Did you use the cancel without redeposit trick? Were you too afraid? Let’s hear about it in the comments!

But for those looking for some paid ticket deals, United is offering United credit cardholders 20% off nearly all international business class fares when they book in multiples of 2 seats (so 4 passengers would also work but 3 would not work as well)

2 passengers can fly round-trip in BusinessFirst with lie-flat seating from Newark to Tel Aviv for just $4,742.64 ($2,371.32 per passenger):

To book this fare just search for flights on United.com in BusinessFirst using offer code: Chase20
You must be logged into your United account with an attached United credit card for the promo to work.

You can also book by calling United at 800-UNITED-1 and mentioning promo code CH80 or telling them to lookup GG CH80

This offer is valid for tickets booked by May 31, 2014 for travel completed by April 30, 2015.

Other cities work as well:
For example Los Angeles to Tel Aviv for $2,385 per passenger. Sample date: 03/02-03/19

Business class passengers get 2 free 70 pound checked bags each as opposed to 1 free 50 pound bag for a coach passenger.

Will you be booking at these rates? Do you think a night’s sleep on a lie-flat bed for a 10-12 hour flight is worth a $600 price premium each way? Does adding in a transcon flight from LA change the math? Sound off in the comments!

However I showed numerous examples from the past decade through 2012 that Cleveland was a profitable hub for United. And unfortunately for United they could not fully shut down hub operation in Cleveland until 2015 if it was profitable.

Over the past couple years United has made Cleveland one of the most expensive airports in the nation to fly out of and made connections in Cleveland very hard to come by so I don’t doubt that it’s no longer currently profitable, at least for 2013. But profitable or not I do agree that it makes little operational sense for Cleveland to exist as a hub.

So why shut it down now instead of waiting until late 2015 and avoiding government scrutiny?

As I said last time, I still believe that the real reason is the double whammy of:
-Pilot qualification rules made in late 2013 that have caused a massive pilot shortage.
And
-Minimum rest periods for pilots just instituted last month that have exacerbated the pilot shortage problem.

Cleveland, more than any other United hub, is heavily dependent on regional flights. Those airlines pay their pilots as little as $21,000 per year and rely on pilots fresh out of school hungry to make their way up the ranks.

Now that these new rules came into play the major airlines have been snapping up the experienced pilots at regional carriers to keep their schedules going even with the new pilot rest directives. Additionally pilots must retire by age 65, so the major airlines are going to face a long-term crunch to keep enough qualified pilots.
The regional carriers can no longer just hire more freshman pilots as they now need 1,500 hours of experience as opposed to just 250 hours that they used to need. That sixfold increase is causing a huge crisis.

So United had to slash lots of regional capacity quickly. And there was no more efficient place to do that than in Cleveland with gobs of low margin regional flights that wouldn’t majorly affect the global system due to the lack of international flights from Cleveland. Taking those regional flights out of other airports would cause much more pain for the system as a whole.

Cleveland’s mainline flights are all staying intact except for the 1 daily flight to Phoenix.

Oh and the small issue of Cleveland continually being told over the past decade that it was profitable? Let’s just add some fixed network costs onto Cleveland and say it wasn’t profitable in a decade so that we don’t wind up paying a fine for closing the hub before 2015…
Riiiiiiiight. Because the same airline that removed pillows from first class to increase their profits by a few bucks would run a hub for an entire decade while it bled money the whole time.

Smisek lies. There is no decade of losses and I would love to be a fly on the wall in Columbus as they look over United’s funny math. Though my guess is that with no defined profitability metric in the agreement there will be nothing that can be done to force United to pay up or even admit playing a number’s game.
————————————————————–

2. In the good news department other airlines see the blood in the water and are already starting to pick up the slack:

-Delta is adding nonstops to Indianapolis and Raleigh/Durham.
-Delta is upgrading the Cleveland-NYC route from 3 daily flights to a whopping 8 daily flights. Come June there will be 3 dailies to JFK and 5 dailies to LGA.
-Frontier just started flying between Cleveland and Trenton, NJ and must like what they’re seeing. They upgrading it from 2 flights per week to 4 in May.
-Southwest will upgrade Akron-LGA from 2 to 3 daily flights. 2 of those flights will be up-gauged from a 717 to a 737.
-Delta is upgrading Cleveland-Atlanta from regional to all mainline jets. Cleveland-Minneapolis is rumored to be upgraded to mainline as well.
-Frontier is increasing Cleveland-Denver flights from 5 to 12 weekly.
-Frontier will add 4 weekly Cleveland-Orlando flights, a new route for them. Intro pricing is just $69 each way.
-Frontier will add 3 weekly seasonal Cleveland-Seattle flights, a new route for them. Intro pricing is just $119 each way.
-Southwest is in talks to beef up CLE service. Don’t be surprised to see new flights to destinations like S. Louis, Tampa, or Phoenix.
-Other good possibilities include Jetblue service to Boston, JFK, Orlando, or Fort Lauderdale and Porter service to Toronto. There may even be a outside shot of landing Virgin America service to LAX or SFO, Sun Country service to Minneapolis, American launching Phoenix service, or Spirit service to Fort Lauderdale or Phoenix.
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3. Cleveland may be unique in being dehubbed twice by the same airline, but it’s only the latest in a long line of closed hubs.

Cleveland is now the most populous metropolitan area in the nation without hub operations and it’s the only metro area of at least 3 million people without a hub airport. No doubt CLE was hurt by having 2 major airports within the metro region. Competition from CAK has been a thorn in CLE’s side ever since Airtran made Akron a focus city.

Not too many airports can lay claim to being dehubbed twice by the same airline. United closed CLE in the 80s, Continental came in and hubbed it, and United has dehubbed it once again.

But just in this century AA has ditched S. Louis, USAirways left Pittsburgh, American West axed Columbus, Delta jettisoned Cincinnati, Dallas, and Memphis, etc.

-On the American/USAirways side it’s hard to see a bright future for Phoenix. It’s days are likely numbered due to being sandwiched between hubs in Dallas and LA.
Philadelphia may also be troubled. Hard to imagine it remaining an international hub with JFK so nearby. I see it being phased out as well with long-haul flights to places like Tel Aviv being shifted over to places like JFK and Miami.

-Delta seems perfectly content to eat everyone else’s lunch as they contract. Operationally Delta runs the best major airline operation today and is in a position of power vis-a-vis American and United. Their mileage program is atrocious but they sure do seem to know how to run an airline. With Cincinnati and Memphis gone they may just hang onto their niche hubs in Detroit, Minneapolis, and Salt Lake City along with their powerhouses in Atlanta and LGA/JFK. They’re even beefing up for a new hub in Seattle to either take down Alaska or force them to merge with them or American.

For all of those in Hawaii now on Delta glitch tickets you can enjoy cooling off in Maui’s Seven Sacred Pools, sunrise on top of Maui’s Haleakala, seeing volcanoes erupt on the Big Island’s Volcanoes National Park, and check out the Big Island’s City of Refuge all for free this Saturday, Sunday, or Monday.

Other free dates in 2014 include 04/19, 04/20, 08/25, 09/27, and 11/11.

1. If you booked before yesterday’s devaluation then you will have much more flexibility then United previously announced.

It’s on the confusing side though, so you’ll probably have to play HUCA (Hang Up and Call Again!) and talk to several agents to get exactly what you want.
-You won’t have to use more miles if you change the operating airline as long as you stay in the same class of service and the same region.
-You won’t have to use more miles if you change the origin, connecting, or destination cities as long as the origin and destination cities are in the same region (US, Europe, Middle East, etc) as you originally booked. However you can’t change the class of service or operating airline in this case.
-You won’t have to use more miles if you change the date as long as you stay in the same class of service and the same region.

2. At least one commenter notes that an agent was willing to change the date without charging extra miles on a ticket that he cancelled without redepositing the miles.
It took him one HUCA to find that agent.

3. If you’re flying on United or Copa in business or first class you can use the cheaper United award chart when connecting to business or first class on a partner airline as long as the partner airline’s flight is within the same region as the United flight lands in.

For example If you fly from Newark to Frankfurt in United Business and connect to Paris in Lufthansa Business you can use the cheaper United award chart.

United had a hub in Cleveland in the 70s and early 80s before jumping ship in 1985. Continental immediately filled the void by hubbing Cleveland, something that won’t happen again today due to considerable airline consolidation. Nobody has filled the void that American left in St. Louis, that Delta left in Memphis and Cincinnati, that America West left in Columbus, or that USAirways left in Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh just took another hit when they learned that AA would shutter their 6 year old USAirways operation center that was built with taxpayer funds.

If Cleveland is lucky perhaps we’ll get Porter flights to Toronto or JetBlue service to Boston and JFK. And if we’re unlucky perhaps we’ll get Spirit

United CEO Jeff Smisek said in a letter to CLE employees that,

Our hub in Cleveland hasn’t been profitable for over a decade.

This is just another lie from someone who has been caught in a web of lies since the merger. He has lied about so many topics that it’s hard to keep them all straight. There’s a reason that passengers and employees alike can’t stand him and that United is bleeding cash and high value customers and corporate contracts. He has made strings of bad decisions that are hurting United in both the short and long term.

You have to love the irony that Cleveland is featured in this month’s United Hemispheres magazine and that Cleveland will host this year’s annual United shareholder’s meeting.

We have significant cultural, operational and financial strengths compared to the rest of the industry, and we want to protect and enhance those strengths – which we believe would be placed at risk in a merger with another carrier in today’s environment.

He was right. Continental went from being the most admired airline to becoming a part of what is now the most reviled airline.

United was shocked at Kellner’s rejection. Apparently, so was Continental’s board. Kellner was forced out less than a year later for Smisek, a Harvard educated lawyer.
Smisek immediately reached out to United and merged Continental with them.

Now here’s the rub with Cleveland. It added value to Continental’s route network as their only other hubs were Houston and overly congested Newark. The writing has been on the wall since the merger thanks to United’s more powerful hubs in Chicago and DC.

Still United had to say that Cleveland was losing tens of millions of dollars in order to close the hub without paying penalties.

The Cleveland hub is too valuable to abandon, especially with Continental’s plans for a $50 million expansion at the airport.
Cleveland must be profitable, or Continental wouldn’t be expanding there. Why would you stop doing things that are profitable? Cleveland’s probably going to be OK.

There might be some rationalization, but I don’t see a huge shift. here would you move the Cleveland traffic to? I don’t see how Chicago could take much more.

Indeed, if CLE has been bleeding for a decade then why would they expand?

Year over year, Cleveland Hopkins’ performance is better than some other hubs in terms of profitability. The hub is in a far better place than it would have been without the efforts of the team in Cleveland.

They were making some good money in Cleveland. I would be surprised if they substantially downsize Cleveland.

Noting that the majority of United’s flights in and out of Cleveland are on smaller, regional jets, Mr. Schwieterman said it wouldn’t make sense to move that traffic to crowded O’Hare or Dulles, taking slots now filled by more profitable international and transcontinental flights.

“It’s a pretty nice niche for United that hasn’t been a drain on its bottom line,” he said.

At that DO I had the pleasure to attend a session given by Brian Znotins, VP of United’s network strategy. I had never before spoken to someone so intimately knowledgeable with airline route planning and I just ate it all up and wrote it up back then. He knew the profitability levels of every route and was just a fountain of incredible knowledge.

He said that,

Cleveland is actually performing well and is profitable. The only reason a hub would be closed or a route would end would be if it was not profitable and if the company did not see a path to profitability.

At that same MegaDO I spoke with Martin Hand, United’s Senior VP of Customer Experience.

Here is what I wrote back then,

Martin Hand, United’s Senior VP of Customer Experience, was a pleasure to talk to as well. Being a Cleveland guy I once again brought up the future of Cleveland, calling it United’s step-child hublette. He joked that as a former Continental guy they love Cleveland and that I shouldn’t be calling it that!

I could’ve said it was because United had already de-hubbed Cleveland once before in the 1980s before Continental eventually took it over and that nearb cities like Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Cincinnati have seen recent catastrophic hub closures, but I said it’s just Clevelanders natural rejection fearing attitude, helped in no small part by LeBron.

He and his former Continental colleague loved that response and started laughing out loud and heartily agreed with me and they both said they were shocked by that episode as well.

Now I’m not saying United has it out for Cleveland. I think the real reason is that United wants to ditch most of their regional jet flying and Cleveland just has too much of that. Perhaps there is some truth behind there being a regional pilot shortage due to the new FAA rules. For now only 1 mainline jet frequency is being cut from Cleveland’s schedule so all the pain is in the regional jet routes.

But this business about not being profitable in a decade seems like an utter farce. It strains credibility to believe that an airline would run a hub operation as a charity for that long of a period of time.

Finally, I see little hope for Cleveland to remain a hub. Continental and United currently have hubs in Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Newark, S. Francisco, and Washington DC.

There is a compelling argument to keep pretty much all of those hubs in place except Cleveland. United already abandoned their hub in Cleveland hub back in 80′s. I’ll bet that United ditches Cleveland once again if this merger is completed.

But this is hardly the first negative outcome of the Continental-United merger.

Passengers from both the pre-merger Continental and United side hate what has become of both airlines. It’s pretty much a mix of the worst policies from both.

Just a small taste of the merger pain and why mergers are never good for consumers:
-Points can no longer be transferred from AMEX to Continental like they used to before the merger.
-The AMEX Platinum card stopped allowing access to clubs like they to for Continental before the merger.
-United didn’t use to charge an award expedite fee but that came back with the merger.
-While Starnet blocking may be gone, United.com is progressively getting worse, no longer displaying award space for Brussels, LOT Polish, or Singapore. People don’t even realize that award tickets to places like Israel are easily bookable, but that it requires doing their own research on other websites. In fact Singapore awards to the US aren’t even bookable over the phone for now. They even lied and said that it was a mutual decision with Singapore when Singapore said it was solely United’s decision.
-Clubs have lost most of the free alcohol that Continental used to offer before the merger.
-Free date changes on awards that Continental used to offer are gone.
-Continental’s backend system was kept (as it was already paid for) which have wreaked havoc on operations and has frustrated elite customers who have to split off travel companions from their itinerary in order to be upgraded. However that process causes the travel companions to lose out on the benefits of being linked to an elite member.
-United recently won a lawsuit so that they don’t have to give expressly promised benefits to million milers like a couple of annual confirmed domestic upgrades that cost United next to nothing. Talk about winning the battle but losing the war against your best customers.
-Award charts, especially around-the-world and first class awards have been devalued on a scale never seen before. And they are now more confusing than ever before with split charts for partner airlines.
-United has been unprofitable since the merger even while other airlines turn huge profits.
-Corporate clients have been fleeing to other airlines as merger related operational issues plagued United. And speaking of being penny-wise and pound foolish United has been alienating some corporate clients by not awarding them PQDs on tickets booked through corporate travel agencies even though the tickets can still cost thousands of dollars. PQDs were added by Delta and copied by United in 2014 as a way to make sure that customers spent thousands of dollars on ticket in addition to flying tens of thousands of miles in order to earn elite status.

CEO Jeff Smisek has run two proud airlines into the ground. He’s now infamous for promising passengers changes that they’re going to like while continuing to erode passenger loyalty and operate at net losses. Can anyone explain how he is still at the helm?

The pain is two fold as for the first time United will charge more to fly to may places and they will charge even more to fly on partner airlines.

The gist of the changes for departures from the US:
-US48/Canada awards don’t change.
-Alaska is broken out as its own category and will become much more expensive with coach now going for 35K instead of 25K and business going for 60K instead of 50K.
-Hawaii in coach goes up from 40K to 45K though business and first are surprisingly unchanged.
-South America is mostly unscathed.
-Europe in coach in unchanged but business on United goes up by 15K to 115K and first on United goes up by 25K to 160K. The real pain is for partner redemption with business going up by 40K to 140K and first going up by a whopping 85K to 220K
-Israel in coach goes up 5K to 85K. Business nonstop on United goes up by 20K to 140K and first on United via Europe goes up by 30K to 180K. Again, the real pain is for partner redemption with business going up by 40K to 160K and first via Europe going up by an insane 130K to 280K. That first class partner jump is the infamous 87% rate increase.
-See the chart for similar increases to Asia, Africa, and Australia.
-Round-The-World awards get really smacked with coach going up 20K to 180K, business going up 90K to 350K, and first going up 100K to 450K.

It’s worth noting that for flights from Israel to places besides North America there is actually some good news:DDF user Drago has the entire changes wrapped up nicely in this spreadsheet
Among many other examples from his chart:
-Israel to Southern Africa in coach goes down from 70K to 60K.
-Israel to Australia or Japan in coach goes down from 90K to 70K.

So how can you fly United First class to Israel via Europe when United doesn’t fly from Europe to Israel?
United has announced that you can still use the United chart instead of the partner award chart if the partner award flight is in a lower class of service than the United flight. So if you fly United First Class from Newark to Frankfurt and then Lufthansa Business class to Tel Aviv you would pay the United First rate of 180K. If you fly United business from Newark to Frankfurt and then Lufthansa coach to Tel Aviv you would pay the United business rate of 140K.

How will changes to tickets booked before February 1st work?
Nobody knows. You can book travel now for travel over the next year to lock in lower rates. However United is leaving this intentionally vague by just saying that their existing change policies will apply and that simple date changes will not trigger the higher mileage rate.

In other words if something would cause a ticket to be reissued then it would have to be repriced at the higher award rates. Changing the origin or destination of a ticket will definitely require a reissue. Changing the dates will definitely not require a reissue.

However everything else is very murky.

Will a change of airlines require a reprice? Will a change of routing (connecting cities) require a reprice? It may, it may not. I guess just assume that it may and be happy if it does not.

Even more likely is that it will be YMMV with some agents doing it without requiring more miles and some asking for more miles.

In my beat the devaluation post I suggested using United.com’s often overlooked “cancel without redepositing miles” as a way to lock in Lufthansa First Class awards which are only released within 2 weeks of a flight. (For other awards you are better booking a flight that’s in a year from now and then making a simple date change.)

Some bloggers agreed that changing the dates that way shouldn’t require a reprice. Others weren’t sure while others thought it would require a reprice.

I think that taking that route should work as it keeps the pricing information from my experience and shouldn’t need a reprice. In other words I helped someone book a flight on United from Newark to Tel Aviv that they cancelled and wound up rebooking a few months later on USAirways and it only charged $50 for a simple change without repricing the itinerary. But it needs to be stressed that we are in uncharted territory here and nobody really can say for sure what will happen.

Some DDF members have asked United and the answers have been everything from of course that would work to there’s no way that would work.

The bottom line is that nobody can give you a definitive answer at this point, not even United themselves.

It’s worth noting that not all airlines show award availability on United.com. Brussels, LOT Polish (which has lie-flat seating in business class on their 787s), and Singapore are notable exceptions that can only be booked over the phone with United (though can be researched on other sites like Air Canada’s Aeroplan and ANA). So if you are looking to lock in cheaper tickets to Israel, pick up that phone and call!

And don’t forget that although United business class isn’t being hit nearly as hard as partner awards, it definitely makes sense to lock in the current rates via a Plan B redemption. Best of all you can lock them in now even if there is only coach award availability! By setting up a Plan B award today you can save yourself tens of thousands of miles.

Does this change my overall mileage strategy?
I find myself using my Starwood card more often than before but I’m not going to shy away from collecting United miles. I’m sitting on over 5 million United miles and it stinks that they’re being devalued like this but I’m not about to burn them to the ground just because of inflation. They’re still wayyyyy better than Delta miles and you can still get an incredible value for your miles. And I don’t think we’ll see another United devaluation for quite some time.
I’d be more scared pouring miles into American and USAirways miles as their award chart is a real bargain at this point in time which makes it ripe for devaluation. So keep those Starwood points in Starwood and transfer them to American or USAirways on an as needed basis only. Better to be safe than sorry and that’s the beauty of transferable points that aren’t locking into just one airline.

To figure out the price in dollars just divide by 6.06. So Newark-Paris is 2,745NOK or about $452.
-Use a card without foreign transaction fees to save the 3% fee. -It takes between 3-12 hours for these tickets to confirm but people have been getting confirmations so don’t call United as it will get confirmed by itself.
-Don’t make nonrefundable hotel reservations yet as we don’t know for sure if these will be honored!
-The US country code is +1

November 23 – December 24, 2013, 11:00 am until mall closing
SF location: The Westfield San Francisco Centre, Dome level near Bloomingdale’s
NJ location: The Mall at Short Hills, located on the first floor near Macy’s and Guest Services

The VIP Lounge is open to all Chase United Credit Card members and features complimentary gift-wrapping, coat and bag check, and snacks and beverages, including fresh baked goods, packaged snacks, soda, bottle water, and coffee, plus café-style seating and flat screen TVs.
Football Sundays: Check out live game-day action every Sunday.
Toys for Tots Tuesdays: Cardmembers may bring a new, unwrapped toy in its original packaging, on the following Tuesdays, December 3rd, December 10th and December 17th and you will receive one United Club pass. Bring two toys and receive two United Club passes.

-For entry, present your valid Chase United Credit Card and a valid ID.
-Each Cardmember may bring up to three guests.
-If you have recently applied for a United Card you may bring your confirmation page to the lounge, and you will be granted access for the entire duration of the VIP Lounge.

It’s obviously not worth getting a United Explorer card for a mall lounge but there are some nice perks of the card besides for the signup bonus (30K for spending $1,000 and 5K for adding an additional user):
-Expanded saver award availability is a huge benefit of being a cardholder. I’m always finding award flights that are only available to cardholders or elites. Cardholders also get last seat standard award availability, something that is capacity controlled for non-cardholders/non-elites.
-As long as you have the card your miles will never expire.
-This is one of the only cards that gives primary car rental insurance in the US. Almost every other card provides secondary coverage which means you have to file a claim with your personal car insurance. The United card covers claims without ever notifying them. Coverage is primary in every country in the world.
-No foreign exchange fees.
-If you spend $25K in a year you get a 10K mileage bonus, meaning you will have earned at least 1.4 miles per dollar on all purchases.
-Free checked luggage and priority boarding on United.
-2 annual lounge passes
-Upgrades for elite cardholders on award tickets

The cost to fly in first class from JFK to Asia is 70,000 United miles each way. Come February 1st and this same award will cost 120K each way. Though if you book now you can make date changes after 02/01 without paying more miles.

Normally it’s tough to find even 1 award seat but here is the United.com calendar for 2 seats. Everything in blue has at least 2 award seats on the nonstop Asiana flight. This is applicable for most months that I look at.

Of course you don’t have to go to South Korea, you can pick another destination and continue on to there. Just search for nonstop flights only from JFK-ICN to first locate availability for your desired dates and then search for the whole trip you want to take, such as JFK-Hong Kong, JFK-Chiang Mai, etc, etc.

Worth noting that you can also use 80,000 Korean miles to fly in a Korean First suite nonstop from Seoul to Tel Aviv. You can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points instantly to both Korean and United.

-You can book a round-trip or an open jaw with the discounted rates.
Examples of an “open jaw” include a flight from Newark to London on 01/19 and then back from Paris to Newark on 01/26 is 48,000 miles plus $90 tax.
Or a flight from Los Angeles to London on 01/19 and then back from Zurich to Newark on 01/26 is 48,000 miles plus $65 tax.

You can always use 4,500 Avios for a one-way flight in Europe.

Rules:
-Book by 11/19
-Travel 01/13/14-03/11/14
-Valid only on United, not on partner airlines.
-Reduced award mileage prices apply only to travel on United- and United Express®-operated flights. Not applicable on flights operated by other airlines.
-Valid for travel to/from the US48, Alaska and Canada to/from Europe.
-Valid for coach saver award only.
-Stopovers are not permitted.
-Round-trip travel is required.
-This offer cannot be applied to previously issued tickets.

1. A devaluation was expected. The shocking part is the split partner chart and the massive increase in partner awards rates, especially in First Class.

It’s been a long time since a serious inflation for the Continental/United programs.
Inflation happens for a couple reasons:
-First of all as the value of a dollar goes down the cost to buy airplane tickets goes up. Just as the value of a dollar sitting in a bank account goes down on a daily basis, so must the miles sitting in your account. Except that it would be ludicrous to have it change daily so we’re hit with these devaluations every few years.
-Second of all we’ve seen credit card bonuses increase and with more miles chasing fewer seats something has to give.

For business it goes up to 140K round-trip on United and 160K on partners. This hurts. The 20K increase is something I can live with, but the 40K partner increase seems too high. It stinks to have to deal with a separate United chart and partner chart. If you want to fly United First and tag on a short flight on a partner it can make more sense to book a separate ticket rather than subject your whole ticket to partner rates.
For first class you’ll now need an eye-popping 280K round-trip on partners. This is just an insane 86.7% increase. The first class partner award increases are really hard to fathom.

2. It’s not a matter of if American and USAirways will devalue, it’s a matter of when.
Their charts look silly compared to United’s new chart. If you have miles with those programs the time to start planning for a nice trip is now.
Don’t shift from accumulating United miles to American/USAirways miles just because their charts look way better right now as you will be disappointed. Transfer Starpoints to those programs on an as-needed basis.
At least you know that the United chart will probably be free from devaluations for the next few years. That can’t be said for American, Delta, and USAirways.

3. Cash-back cards need to be looked at more seriously.
Sure your dollars are also devalued, albeit more stealthily. But you can invest those dollars to hedge against inflation. You can’t do the same with your miles.
The best cash back card out there is the Barclaycard Arrival World Mastercard which earns 2.22% cash back on everything with no foreign exchange fees. It also has a sweet 40,000 point signup bonus.
You get 2 points per dollar everywhere and a 10% point rebate every time you redeem your points. People have been changing those points into cold hard cash by booking a refundable travel reservation. At that point they redeem their points to get cash for them for it before refunding the travel reservation. 2.22% cash back is pretty much as good as it gets for cash.

If you redeem for an international coach ticket you’ll usually do better with this card than with a mileage card. Last-minute coach tickets, short-haul coach tickets, one-way coach tickets, business class tickets, and first class tickets are still much better with real airline miles than with cash. But can you really justify burning 280K miles to fly First Class to Israel on a partner airline? Business class may be the sweet spot of the future.

4. Transferable currencies are a hedge against devaluations.
If you’re only earning miles on a United card you’ve been hosed today. Those miles are stuck there and come February they’re worth less.
But if you have a Chase Ultimate Rewards cards at least you have other excellent options. I’ll go over them in the coming days.

Starwood Starpoints are really shining brightly today. They have dozens of transfer partners so even when one devalues there are tons of other options. And they give a 25% bonus for each 20K transferred. Plus unlike with other transferable currencies, your points stay alive even if you close yourStarwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express.

Membership Rewards also allows you to transfer to several programs, though they’re not partners with “exciting” partners like Alaska, American, or USAirways like Starwood is. And they don’t offer good hotel options like both Chase and Starwood have. Still it’s always nice to have transferable points.

It definitely pays to diversify.

5. We don’t have to take this sitting down!-Retweet my Tweet here and send your own tweets to @United with the hashtag: #UnitedUnfriendly
The more you post the quicker mainstream media will pick up on this story. Let’s get it trending!

-Express your displeasure to Chase (Twitter: @Chase, @Chase Support) about these changes. Chase buys billions of dollars of United miles and isn’t likely to be happy that they’ve been devalued. They’re especially not going to be happy to lose customers to cards like the Starwood AMEX. If anyone has the power to put pressure on United it’s Chase.

-Contact United CEO Jeff Smisek and let him know how these changes will affect your travel patterns and credit card spending. He can be reached at jeff.smisek@united.com

-If you feel that an 87% increase is just flat-out unfair you can also file a complaint with the US DOT. Sure United is free to do what they want, but this devaluation simply doesn’t happen if Continental and United were still competing. Delta and Northwest miles have gone from being worthwhile to being worthless thanks to their merger. Let the DOT know that you feel an 87% increase in the cost of some awards is unfair to consumers and that you want to see the DOT keep fighting the American-USAirways merger in court. If that merger goes through you can be sure we’ll be seeing more painful changes like this one.

What are your thoughts? How will these changes affect what cards you spend on or where you accumulate miles? Sound off in the comments!

United has just announced that they will be raising the rates of most awards effective 02/01/14. Their industry leading award chart was simply too good to be true. The only good news to be found here is that it will still remain completely free of fuel surcharges and booking fees, something no other network carrier in the world can say.

You can book at the current rates until 01/31/14 for travel as far out as January 2015. But once February comes around you’ll have to book using the new award chart.

With the current award chart the rates are the same no matter what airline you’re flying on.
With the new award chart you will pay a significant premium to fly on a partner airline. In some cases the rate to fly on a partner airline will be nearly double what the current rate is.

These changes will raise the value on other Star Alliance currencies like Aeroplan, ANA, Avianca, Singapore, USAirways, etc.

The USAirways and American award charts are now extreme bargains and are very likely to be devalued as soon as their merger is either approved or rejected.

Below is a chart I put together comparing the new rates.
The first rate is the current rate.
In the parenthesis is the additional miles you’ll need over the current rate and the new rate when flying on United.
In the brackets is the additional miles you’ll need over the current rate and the new rate when flying on a Star Alliance or other partner airlineThe rates listed are for one-way travel at the saver level.

For example:
-A one-way ticket between the US and Israel now costs 40K in coach, 60K in business, and 75K in first on any airline.
-Starting in February a one-way ticket on United from the US to Israel will cost 42.5K in coach, 70K in business, and 90K in first. Mind you United doesn’t even fly First Class to Israel so I have no idea how you would ever wind up paying 90K.
-Starting in February a one-way ticket on a partner airline from the US to Israel will cost 42.5K in coach, 80K in business, and a whopping 140K in first. That’s an 86.7% increase if you want to fly Lufthansa First Class to Israel over the current rates. Like I said, #UnitedUnfriendly

The gist is that with 19,000 miles you can earn a status that may last you a lifetime.
Until now United has given Star Alliance Gold members and everyone who travels with them 3 free 70 pound bags each.
Not only that but foreign Star Alliance Gold members have free access to domestic United lounges even if they aren’t traveling internationally. United’s own elite members don’t have that privilege.

United however isn’t amused. The letter of the law is that Star Alliance Golds must be provided with 1 additional free bag. Effective for tickets bought on or after 10/17 United is doing just that. They are slashing the Star Gold baggage allowance down to just 1 free 50 pound bag for the Gold member and their travel companions on domestic itineraries.
On most international itineraries (such as Newark-Tel Aviv) Star Golds and their companions will each get 2 free 50 pound bags.
When Star Golds are traveling in business or first class they will still get 3 free 70 pound bags.

Star Alliance Silver members will no longer get any free bags, down from 1 free 50 pound bag.

If you fly on Air Canada or USAirways with Star Alliance Gold status you and all of your companions still get 3 free 50 pound bags (for now!) I wouldn’t be surprised to see them match United soon, so if you do need the extra baggage you may want to book travel on them now before the change goes into effect.
Baggage rules always follow the date you book the ticket, not the date of travel.

Note that this doesn’t effect United elites. United Silver elites continue to get 1 free 50 pound bag. United Gold/Platinum/1K/GS elites continue to get 3 free 70 pound bags.

It’s also worth noting here that effective next year United is making it much harder to qualify for United elite status if you are based in US.

If you want Silver status not only will you need 25,000 miles but you’ll have to spend $2,500 on United flights. Gold status will take 50,000 miles and $5,000 spent on United flights. Platinum status will take 75,000 miles and $7,500 spent on United flights. 1K status will take 100,000 miles and $10,000 spent on United flights. Oh, and taxes built into the tickets dont count towards that spending.
-If you’re not based in the US the spend requirement is waived.
-If you have a Presidential Plus card the spend requirement is waived for Silver, Gold, and Platinum
-If you spend $25,000 anywhere on a United credit card in 2014 then the spend requirement is waived for Silver, Gold, and Platinum. The United Explorer card also gives a bonus 10,000 miles for spending $25,000 on it in a calendar year, earning an effective 1.4 miles per dollar spent in additional to waiving the spend requirement on United flights. The Club card earn 1.5 miles per dollar everywhere on all spend.

This code seems to give a small discount for all United flights completed by 12/15/13.

For example:
-A flight from Newark to Tel Aviv from 12/04-12/11 is $1,011.97 instead of $1,047.97.
-A flight from Newark to Tel Aviv and returning from Tel Aviv to Chicago via Newark from 11/20-12/05 is $915.97 instead of $929.97.
-A flight from Chicago, Houston, or Washington DC to Tel Aviv from 11/20-12/05 is $791.97 instead of $811.97.
-A flight from Cleveland to Tel Aviv from 11/20-12/05 is $806.97 instead of $827.97.
-A flight from Miami to Tel Aviv from 11/20-12/05 is $808.97 instead of $830.97.
-A flight from Los Angeles or S. Francisco to Tel Aviv from 11/20-12/05 is $845.97 instead of $871.97.
-A flight from Newark to West Palm Beach from 11/10-11/13 is $187.09 instead of $195.80.
-A flight from LaGuardia to Chicago from 11/06-11/12 is $206.11 instead of $215.80.

This goes into effect in 2014 for qualification for elite status in 2015. You do not need to meet the spend requirements in 2013 for 2014 qualification.

You will need to spend:
-$2,500 on tickets+25,000 flown miles+4 segments on United to get Silver status.
-$5,000 on tickets+50,000 flown miles+4 segments on United to get Gold status..
-$7,500 on tickets+75,000 flown miles+4 segments on United to get Platinum status.
-$10,000 on tickets+100,000 flown miles+4 segments on United to get 1K status.

Government taxes do not count towards the spend requirement though fuel surcharges and economy plus upgrades do.
Tickets are United partners will count towards the spend requirement only if they are issued by United. There will be a calculator on United.com next year to keep track of your qualified spending on United tickets.

In other words they don’t want people flying on cheap fares to get elite status.

There are several exceptions and workarounds for the time being:
-This only effects members who are based in the 50 United States and D.C. If your Mileage Plus address is outwide of the US then this won’t apply to you.
-If you spend $25,000 on a United credit card like the Chase United Explorer in 2014 than you can earn Silver, Gold, or Platinum status without having to meet any minimum spend requirement on United tickets.
The good news there is that you also earn 10,000 bonus miles for spending $25K on that card within a calendar year, so you will earn 35K miles for that spending or a minimum of 1.4 miles per dollar spend everywhere which is not bad at all. It was nice that they made both of those thresholds coincide at $25K.
-If you have multiple United credit cards they will add up the total spend accross all of those cards and it it totals $25K then the United spend requirement will be waived for Silver, Gold, or Platinum status.
-If you have a grandfathered Presidential Plus card you can earn Silver, Gold, or Platinum status without having to meet any minimum spend requirement on United tickets.
-If you have the United Club or Presidential Plus card you don’t have to meet the 4 United segment minimum.
-Million miler lifetime elites aren’t subject to spend requirements unless they are trying to reach a tier higher than what they have with their lifetime status.
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The 2nd bit of bad news is that change fees on award tickets for non-elites go way up for ticket purchased on or after 06/19.

-Previously date changes were free if the new flight was more than 21 days away and you didn’t change the origin or destination. Now those changes are $75. This remains free for all elites though.

-Previously making date changes were $75 if the new flight was within 21 days away or you changed the origin or destination. Now those changes are $100 for non-elites. They remain $50 for Silvers, $25 for Golds, and free for Platinum and higher.

-Previously canceling an award and redepositing the miles was $150. Now a redeposit is $200 for non-elites. They remain $125 for Silvers, $100 for Golds, and free for Platinum and higher.

-Award close-in fees for awards booked within 21 days remain $75 for non-elites, $50 for Silvers, $25 for Golds, and free for Platinum and higher.
Award close-in fees are waived for United Club cardholders.

I definitely expect to see other domestic airlines to match the $200 redeposit fee in the days to come. Delta and USAirways have always charged $150 for date changes, so they are both more expensive in that department though American continues to offer free date changes (for now!)

In the next few weeks United will start selling subscriptions for travel in Economy Plus. A subscription will be good for exactly 12 months.

Economy Plus puts you at the front of coach and it gives you several extra inches of legroom and generally makes coach travel far more pleasant. Plus the odds of getting an empty seat next to you and being able to seat your family together are much greater in Economy Plus.

That’s for one traveler.
For $200 extra that traveler can bring one guest on the same reservation with them into Economy Plus. Or for $400 extra that traveler can bring up to 8 guests on the same reservation with them into Economy Plus.

Economy Plus for a Newark to Tel Aviv flight normally sells for $222 to $318 round-trip per person depending on how good the seat is.
A global plan that allow up to 9 people on the reservation to have access to Economy Plus would cost $1,099.

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United will also sell baggage subscriptions. These are not a good deal as just having a United Explorer card gives you one free bag. Plus a United Club card (click on the club card tab when viewing the Explorer card) gives you 2 free bags. In addition those cards give other benefits like primary car rental insurance, expanded saver and last seat standard award availability, and for the Club card waived award close-in expedite fees and 50% bonus miles on all purchases.

That’s for one traveler.
For $100 extra that traveler can allow one guest on the same reservation to have the same baggage privilege.

For reasons that I don’t understand here is the variable pricing for that traveler to allow up to 8 guests on the same reservation to have the same baggage privileges
-US48 subscription: $300
-Intra-Asia subscription: $300
-North and Central America subscription: $400
-Global subscription: $200

A global plan that allows up to 9 people on the reservation to check 2 free bags would cost $999.

Normally checking 2 bags from Newark to Tel Aviv would run $200 round-trip per person. Though that’s free with a Club card.

Again, this is part of the beta site, so these prices are definitely subject to change.

Update #2: DDF users chff and ruly101 posted this morning that their 5,000 miles had posted. I went to my United account and lo and behold my 5,000 miles had posted as well under the description “Chase Bonus”
Did you get a 5,000 mile Chanukah present as well?

Don’t have a United card? Scroll to the end of this post to see how I earned 105,000 miles and $100 cashback for opening a United consumer and business card.
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Originally posted on 10/07:

Update: United has updated the terms of these promos to exclude Americans. Here are screenshots of the promotions with the original terms:

There are a couple links going around for bonus miles for spending on any United credit card.
They appear not to be targeted and I was able to register for both promotions.
It should count all spending back from August 1st, even if you register today.

According to the terms the bonus miles won’t post until mid-January, so we won’t know if this works until then, but it would be pretty sweet if I get both bonuses

-Find more articles like this by clicking on the “Trip Notes” tab on top of the DansDeals banner at the top of this site.

I flew last week to Chicago to experience the tail end of Star MegaDo 4. Hundreds of frequent flyer enthusiasts from forums like Flyertalk and Milepoint get together and fly around the world together and meet with various airline and hotel executives. Star of course refers to Star Alliance. A DO (pronounced like the word do or due) is simply a get-together while a MegaDo is a really big get together. Space to attend these events is always quite limited and there is a cost from $1,000 up to $5,000 depending on how much of the event you want to attend (domestic or international+domestic) and what class you’ll be sitting in on the plane. Participants were treated to flying a brand new United 787 Dreamliner among many other goodies.

I was invited to attend the United portion of the DO in Chicago for free so that’s what I’ll talk about. United billed it as their “inaugural” DO, so this will likely become an annual event. I’ll also cover the hotel I stayed in, the local DDF (DansDeals Forum) DO, and a small part of the local kosher scene that I experienced.

This is not my typical vacation trip report, rather it is a long and technical trip report about United Airlines. If you slog through it I’d love to hear your feedback in a comment and whether I should cover other such events in the future.

Although the rules say that stopovers are no permitted and that open jaws are only valid for airports in the same region like JFK and EWR I searched for a flight using “multiple destinations” from Los Angeles to NYC for a week and then Newark to Paris and Paris back to Los Angeles and it priced out at just 48,000 miles.

Or from Newark to Zurich for a week and then from London to Los Angeles and finally from LA back to JFK is 48,000 miles as well.

Click on the images below to enlarge and view these examples:

From LAX:

From NYC:

Rules:
-Book by 11/15/12 at 11:59pm CST
-Travel between 01/15/13-03/13/13
-Valid only on United, not on partner airlines.
-Reduced award mileage prices apply only to travel on United- and United Express®-operated flights. Not applicable on flights operated by other airlines.
-Valid for travel to/from the US48, Alaska and Canada to/from Europe.
-Valid for coach saver award only.
-Stopovers are not permitted.
-Round-trip travel is required.
-This offer cannot be applied to previously issued tickets.

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